First Drop of Crimson

"You bargained your soul to a demon," Oliver said without pity. "You deserve what you have coming to you."

"I know I deserve it!" Nathanial shouted. "You don't know how many times I've wished I could turn back the clock so I never made that bargain, but I did. All through the past seventy years with Web, through every awful, degrading thing that they did to me, the only thing that kept me sane was knowing it could always be worse." His voice broke with pain. "And now it will be, and I know it's no more than I deserve, but that doesn't make me any less afraid."

Denise thought of her murdered cousins and aunts, her parents, and Raum's howling threats that he'd kill the rest of her family if she didn't return the man sitting across the seat from her. Then she thought of Randy's brave smile before he went out that basement door, and the guilt and cowardice that had filled her ever since.

"If you could have anything you wanted, what would it be?" she asked Nathanial quietly.

"That's easy." His voice was a rasp. "I want to live without being afraid or used or ashamed. I want a second chance."

Denise closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them, she knew what she had to do.

"Oliver, pull over for a second," she said.

He gave her a measured glare. "I'm not letting him go, no matter what you say."

"I know," Denise replied. "I just want you to stop for a moment. I promise, I won't ask you to let him go."

Oliver gave her a wary look, but pulled over to the side. Nathanial let out a weary grunt.

"Don't worry. I couldn't make a run for it even if I wanted to - and believe me, I want to. But Spade must've done something to me when he tranced me. I can't make myself even grab the door handle to open it."

"Good," Oliver said shortly, glancing around before putting the car in park. He met Denise's gaze in the rearview mirror. "It looks safe enough here for the moment, what do you want?"

Denise took a deep breath. "I'm sorry."

And then she whipped up the gun Spade had left for her in the backseat and smashed the butt of it against Oliver's head.

Spade prowled the docks, looking for any more of Web's people. The scent of death hung in the air, sharpened with the harsher aroma of undead blood. Spade savored it. It was the scent of Denise's safety.

The fighting had been brutal, but now most of Web's people were dead. A few had managed to run off completely. Cat and Crispin were busy stacking the bodies into one of the larger boats, where an explosion would give them a modern version of a Viking funeral. In Spade's opinion, it was more dignified than they deserved, but they couldn't leave them out in the open as they were for humans to find. Flames would burn off any paranormal evidence in their blood, leaving only a strange cache of charred corpses with varying ages in the boat to be found, no supernatural traces left behind. As for Web's monitors on the docks...they'd been found and destroyed.

Crispin already had to green-eye a few humans to forget the slaughter they'd stumbled onto. When the police didn't show up, Spade suspected Web had warned them away from the docks earlier. Web wouldn't have made Monaco his home without having an in with the local human authorities.

Spade felt a grim satisfaction as a search of the harbor and surrounding grounds of the hotels turned up no more vampires. As to the few that got away, he'd find them. They had no Master of their line to protect them now. It wouldn't take him long to track them, especially not with the bounty he intended to put out on them - preferably delivered dead instead of undead.

"Spade!"

His head jerked around as he recognized Oliver's voice, fear slithering up his spine. He wasn't supposed to be here. He was supposed to take Denise and Nathanial to Mencheres and stay with them until Spade rejoined them later.

Spade flew in the direction of Oliver's voice, seeing the other man had just reached the docks. On foot.

"Where's Denise?" he demanded, dropping out of the sky to grab Oliver. "Why isn't she with you?"

"She knocked me out," Oliver said thickly. "She'd been talking to Nathanial, and then she just clubbed me. I didn't even see her raise the gun, she was so fast. When I came to, she'd already gone. I searched for her, but I didn't find the SUV. I don't know how long I was out..."

Spade threw back his head and roared with pain. There was only one reason Denise would have done such a thing.

She was going after the demon herself.

"I don't think this is going to work," Nathanial muttered.

Denise threw him a quelling glare. Her palm still burned from where she'd cut the transmitter out after dumping Oliver's unconscious body on the shoulder of the road. That blow to the head wouldn't take too long to heal, with the vampire blood he'd drunk earlier. She'd cut Nathanial's transmitter out, too. She couldn't go through all this just for Mencheres to track them and stop her.

"You remember what the alternative is, right? If you like your soul and want to keep it awhile longer, you'll quit saying this isn't going to work and start brainstorming ways it will."

"Raum is an ancient, powerful demon. You're just a human. How do you think you can outfight Raum enough to stab him in the eyes? Call your boyfriend. He has a better chance of defeating Raum."

"If I do that, I may as well shoot you with this gun. It would be more merciful."

"You could shoot me all you want, it won't kill me," Nathanial said bleakly. "If it were that easy for me to die, I wouldn't be here. I tried every way to kill myself over the years. Hung myself. Shot myself. Stabbed myself. Jumped off a cliff. Blew myself up. Even had someone cut my head off - "

"No," Denise gasped. "You did not survive all that."

Nathanial gave her a weary, jaded look. "You don't get what these brands are, do you? If they'd let me speak to you before, I could have told you. They're extensions of Raum's power. All his power, including his regenerative power. So just like nothing but that bone knife can kill a demon, nothing but that bone knife can kill someone branded by a demon. Took me a while to figure that out, but by then, Thomas convinced me not to use the knife on myself."

"Who's Thomas?"

"Was. Thomas was the priest I tricked who later helped me."

Denise cast another glance at him while she drove. "You didn't really survive your head getting cut off, did you?"

"You know how vampires regrow a limb right away after it's cut off?" Nathanial made a slicing gesture across his throat. "New head, same look, within an hour. Made the person who decapitated me shit himself before he fainted."

Denise remembered Raum taunting her the day he'd branded her that she was now beyond mortal death. She didn't realize how far beyond he'd meant.

"But I bled when Web stabbed me. Spade had to heal me."

"Of course you bled. But he didn't have to heal you. You'd have healed soon enough on your own. Might have taken a day. You haven't been branded that long, you said. The longer you have the demon essence in you, the faster you'll heal."

This was all so hard to take in - and frightening. If she was successful, she'd be branded for the rest of her life...and that life might last longer than she could even conceive of.

Or it might end before the sun rose.

"We need Spade if you're going to try to kill Raum," Nathanial said for the tenth time.

Denise snapped out a reply without looking away from the road. "Don't you get it? Spade won't risk my life for your soul. He'll offer you up to Raum in a heartbeat. I can't get him involved."

Nathanial was silent for a long moment. "Why are you doing this for me? Taking on a demon when you could just hand me over and get back to your life?"

She let out a long breath. Because she couldn't live with herself if she gave him over to the demon, knowing what would happen. Because she'd made up her mind that she was not the same person who'd stayed below in the basement that fateful New Year's Eve. It was time for her to stand tough. To face the monsters, instead of letting others fight them for her.

"You said you wanted a second chance? Well, Nathanial, so do I."

Chapter Thirty-five

Denise stood under the pier, the sand ending in waves a few feet behind her. The SUV had just sunk beneath the dark waters, filling quickly with all its windows rolled down and the doors open. Denise raised the gun, aiming it at Nathanial. She'd never shot anyone before in her life, but that was about to change.

"Are you sure this is necessary?"

Nathanial let out an impatient sigh. "You're determined to fight Raum on your own, so you'll need the element of surprise. If you summon him and I'm standing here calmly waiting for my doom, he'll be suspicious. You'll lose your element of surprise - and Denise, even with the element of surprise, and shifting into whatever you think is strong enough to beat a demon, your chances aren't that great."

"Aren't you the pep talker?" She was already nervous about facing and fighting the demon. Hearing his perception of her odds wasn't helping that.

Nathanial gave her a hard look. "You should call Spade."

"You've got such a death wish," she muttered. "For the last time, I'm not calling Spade. Period."

Denise wasn't telling Nathanial the other reason she was keeping Spade out of this, aside from the fact that he'd absolutely never let her do it. Raum had an ax to grind with Spade after those salt bombs. If Spade showed up anywhere near the demon, Denise had no doubt Raum would try to kill him. With her unheard-of capacity for injuries, she had more of a chance than Spade did.

And she'd be damned if she'd stand back once again and let the man she loved fight - and die - for her.

"So if Raum knows these bullets won't kill you, what's the point of me shooting you?"

"Because if I'm wounded enough, I can't shift. You wouldn't have been able to shift that day after your stab wound, except Spade healed you. That's why Web kept me drained of blood all the time, aside from selling it, of course. He knew otherwise I'd shift into something that could take him out. If Raum sees me wounded, unable to shift, he'll be a hell of a lot more inclined to think you're not double-crossing him."

Her palms were sweaty, making the gun feel slick in her grip. "Where, ah, do you want it?"

"If it's in the shoulder, it won't look convincing enough. In the heart might kill me if Raum removes the brands right away once he arrives...and we need him to remove the brands from me, by the way. That's your best chance to attack, when he's concentrating on pulling his power from me back into him. Aim for the middle. It'll take long enough to heal that Raum won't be suspicious, but should be healed enough that it won't kill me when I'm human again."

"But if I hit a major organ and you're still not healed enough when you become human again, it might kill you. I think I should just shoot you in the leg or something."

Nathanial waved his hand. "Look, we don't have a lot of time. Your boyfriend is probably scouring the area looking for you, so if you want to keep him out of this, you need to aim for the gut and shoot me already. If I end up dying from the gunshot wound, it's still a far better fate than what Raum has in mind."

Denise took one step forward, centered her attention on Nathanial's side around the navel level, and then pulled the trigger.

He stumbled back, holding his side, red leaking out from his fingers. "Motherfucker," he panted.

"Sorry," Denise said uselessly.

"It's all right." Nathanial's voice was hoarse from pain. "Now, hide the demon-bone knife in the sand by your feet. Then all you need to do is slice off those tattoos on your forearms. Once the protective spell is altered, Raum'll know it. He'll come running, believe me."

Denise tried to steady her nerves and then reminded herself that being wigged out would only help in this case. What prompted a transformation? Hunger, nerves, pain, stress, and horniness. She'd have four out of the five covered. It should be enough to prompt her to shift. Of course, Nathanial thought there was nothing Denise could imagine strong enough or horrifying enough to defeat the demon.

Well, Nathanial hadn't been there that night on New Year's Eve. She'd seen one of the creatures that had killed dozens of powerful vampires, ghouls, and her husband. It burst into the basement and mauled Cat's mother. Only the spell that created such an abomination being broken seconds later, and a lot of vampire blood, had saved Justina.

Raum had no idea the kind of horror Denise had lurking in her nightmares, but she was about to show him.

"I'm ready," she said, tossing her cell phone farther up on the sand, but burying the demon knife a few inches from her feet.

Then she took one of the silver knives she'd stolen from Oliver and sliced it down her forearm, careful to only remove the skin and not bite into the tendons. Or arteries. It burned and throbbed with a terrible fire, making her break into a sweat and bite back a whimper. Almost done. Almost...

"God damn that hurts," she whispered when she was finished.

"Careful." Nathanial's voice was grimly amused. "Don't curse God now. We need all the help we can get."

Denise gave him a fleeting caricature of a smile but then swiped the blade down her other arm before she lost her nerve. It hurt just as much as the first one did, and was more difficult, with the blood slicking down the blade and her fingers shaking from pain. When she'd reached the last etching near her wrist, she was gasping, her fingernails starting to curve into those hideous claws that she now realized had always been those of the monster from her nightmares. The same one she intended to transform into shortly.